Alice PERIN: “To Stay in the Best Shape in Quarantine with Vision of the Upcoming Competitions”

Due to the pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus all over the world, sambists have lost the opportunity to fully train and compete in international tournaments. Serbian sambist Ivana Jandrich, who connects her present and future with journalism, specially for the FIAS website prepared the project “Life during a pandemic”. She interviews sambists from different countries, talking about the current situation and their plans for the future. Today, Alice Perin from Italy answers Ivana's questions.

If you think that Martial arts are not a good choice for a girl, well you are taking it wrong. The past few years we saw that women in fighting sports are more than strong fighters. Being a SAMBO fighter requires a knowledge on many levels. One has to be strong, fast, focused and persistent.

Alice Perin is a 25 years old Italian champion in SAMBO and the proof that a girl can be a good athlete-fighter and to be feminine at the same time. When her boyfriend introduced her to SAMBO in 2017, Alice wanted to compete as soon as possible. Just two years later, she won the bronze medal at the European SAMBO Championships.

– How did you find out about the Covid 19 and what was your first impression?

– I work in the commercial field and I communicate with Chinese producers and factories for import trade. I was aware of the virus because of the closure of Chinese factories gave us some trouble at work, but I never in a million years thaught it could affect so badly my own country. At the beginning I was pretty scared but after I understood that I couldn’t do anything about it, and I felt better.

–You live with your boyfriend who is also an athlete, is it easier to have anybody around who understands your workout in quarantine?

– Yes, we are living together for two years now. Before that happened we were in Canada for a while which motivated us to take that step. It’s hard, we are training in our little apartment as much as we can. We are in house lockdown ever since March 8^th, but yes, it makes it a lot easier.

– Can you tell us about your beginnings and results in SAMBO?

– I started doing SAMBO in 2017 because of my boyfriend Michael. I knew he was already practicing it and I got curious. I’ve asked him to try and very soon I’ve joined with trainings. It didn’t take too long for me to go on a competition, I think just few months later I did my first competition.

– What keeps you coming back on the competition? What is the best part of it for you?

– Well, I think the environment, the atmosphere and the respect between sambists is the thing that keeps me around. Also, I have to say, SAMBO is very different sport from every other, because of the rules. I get to express my wrestling style, and this is very interesting for me.

If you are interested in what Alice has to say about this time in quarantine, watch the video below.

Photos by FIAS Press-Service and personal archive of Alice Perin.